I often serve as a challenger at my local polling place and I find myself occassionally forced to have people removed from the polling place. Why? They're not only wearing a tee-shirt but they're hanging around afterwards. The reason is that it's intimidating to other voters.

I'll put it in a way you can understand: Imagine you walk into a polling place and you see a bunch of people wearing McCain/Palin tee-shirts and/or buttons equating Obama with Osama or whatever. You (assuming you're all lock-step Obama voters) would feel nervous. Some voters (older people, immigrants from countries with little democratic history, etc.) would be intimidated enough to change their vote. That's not how a democracy is run efficiently.

In 2000, I made a cop who was assigned to the polling place to stop talking about politics. I said to him, "You're not going to come in here with a badge and gun and tell people within earshot how someone should vote." He was pissed as hell but he knew the rules and even he had to shut up. And we know how the 2000 election ended up.

About Me

Sarah Lewitinn (born February 3, 1980), also known by her nickname Ultragrrrl, is a music critic, DJ, and blogger. She gained notoriety as an assistant editor at SPIN Magazine.
In 2006, New York magazine named Lewitinn as one of "The Most Influential People in Music", citing that "she has more power than any print music critic".